Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits

July 31, 2017: Republican strategist Mollie Fullington and Democratic strategist Rebecca Katz join Max & Murphy to discuss the 2017 New York City mayoral race.

Mollie Fullington used to work for Governor George Pataki and recently handled press and communications for mayoral candidate Paul Massey.

Massey & Malliotakis (photo via Crain's New York Business)

In a move that sent shockwaves throughout the New York political world, Paul Massey, a real estate executive running for the Republican nomination for mayor, abruptly dropped out of the race just hours after a debate with his primary rival, Staten Island Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis. The move leaves Malliotakis as the clear frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

In a statement released to the press, Massey stated that his reason for dropping out was

Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits

Max & Murphy is a podcast focused on New York City politics and policy hosted by Ben Max of Gotham Gazette and Jarrett Murphy of City Limits. Past episodes of the podcast can be found here and can be dowloaded from iTunes and other podcast networks. The podcast began with a focus on housing in early 2016, but has expanded into other areas, now turning to the 2017 city elections, especially the race for

(photo: The Governor's Office)

Standing near a City Hall subway stop, Staten Island Assembly member and GOP mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis railed against Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of the city’s transit system and its state-controlled operator, the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

At a podium set up just outside a 4 and 5 train entrance -- the same station that the mayor and his family emerged from for his inauguration on January 1, 2014 -- Malliotakis said last Friday that de Blasio has been ineffective and pledged that if she is elected

Paul Massey meets voters (photo via @MasseyForMayor)

Republican mayoral candidate Paul Massey introduced himself to voters on the Upper East Side at a campaign event Monday, shaking hands outside the 86th Street and Lexington Avenue subway stop. Massey spoke with roughly three dozen people in the nearly half-hour he posted up near the street corner, sporting a dark blue suit and a broad smile on a stiflingly hot June day.

“Want to meet the next mayor of New York?” members of Massey’s staff asked commuters, most of whom rushed past, trying to lure them in

(photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Candidates running for mayor have begun to gather signatures to get on the ballot, bringing election season into full swing. Mayor Bill de Blasio is in a relatively comfortable position and polls show that he is likely to sail to reelection, but it is still relatively early, with September primary and November general elections on the horizon. Anything can happen in a political campaign.

As the mayor prepares to spend the next six months asking New Yorkers to give him another four years, he will also have to

(photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)

Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order Friday affirming New York City’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, from which President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would withdraw the United States. New York City, the president’s hometown, has terrain that makes the city especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which the Paris agreement seeks to mitigate by limiting global temperature increases. The agreement was signed by 195 countries in December 2015.

De Blasio

Malliotakis, left, & Massey (photos: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette)

The Republican field for the mayor’s race has winnowed down to two major candidates -- real estate executive Paul Massey and state Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis -- and a few longshot contenders with a minimal presence on the campaign trail. With just four months till the September primary and Malliotakis only in the race a few weeks, early signs indicate Republican Party officials may be split on Massey and Malliotakis while a contentious primary battle has quickly

Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Candidates in the running for Mayor in this year’s municipal elections filed their latest fundraising and expenditure reports with the New York City Campaign Finance Board on Monday. Mayor Bill de Blasio, the Democratic incumbent, leads the pack with more than $2.5 million in his campaign account, while those seeking to unseat him -- Democrats, Republicans, and others alike -- lag behind in terms of cash-on-hand. Those other candidates have shown varied levels of success in fundraising, and have

Wednesday's forum (photo via Manhattan GOP)

Candidates running, or hoping to run, for the Republican mayoral nomination made the case for their candidacies at a GOP forum in Manhattan on Wednesday night, pitching their qualifications and levelling criticism at Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio. Indicative of de Blasio’s incumbent status and the nature of the opposition field, the event featured more criticism of the mayor than forward-looking policy talk.

The Metropolitan Republican Club, on the Upper East Side, hosted four candidates -- real estate

Paul Massey (photo: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette)

Real estate executive Paul Massey, a leading Republican mayoral contender, held a week-long campaign launch earlier this month, concluding with a focus on community policing. Having visited each borough with a daily theme, Massey said in an email blast on March 17, “I’ve heard many concerns in my discussions with city residents this week and one that stands out is that our city feels less safe.”

It wasn’t the first time Massey made the claim, and it wasn’t

Paul Massey (photo: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette)

With just six months until the primaries in this year’s city elections, declared candidates for the Republican mayoral nomination have begun to step up fundraising and campaigning. Meanwhile, two potential GOP mayoral candidates are still exploring a run, and the entrance of one or both could shake up a race that is off to a seemingly lopsided start.

Midnight on Wednesday was the deadline for the latest round of campaign finance disclosures, covering a two-month

Paul Massey (photo: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette)

Mayoral candidate Paul Massey, a real estate executive running for the Republican nomination, has promised to not accept financial campaign contributions from people who do business with the city. But, that pledge does not apply to his current campaign, which has already received about two dozen donations from people with city business.

While Massey has made the promise on the trail, when presented with Gotham Gazette’s analysis

Paul Massey (photo: Samar Khurshid/Gotham Gazette)

Republican mayoral candidate Paul Massey took his campaign to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s home turf Tuesday, hosting a news conference at the steps of City Hall to criticize the mayor’s record and the ongoing legal investigations into de Blasio’s campaign and government behavior.

Massey, a millionaire real estate executive, has centered his early campaign on attacking de Blasio as corrupt and incompetent. In what was his first official news conference as a mayoral candidate, Massey was short on policy

GOP mayoral candidate Paul Massey, right (photo: @MasseyforMayor)

In hopes of denying Mayor Bill de Blasio a second term, some New York City Republican leaders intend to rally around a single candidate to avoid a contentious primary and present a stronger challenge in the general election.

Starting this week, Republican Party leaders and members will begin the process of vetting candidates who have declared their intention to run for mayor or are exploring a mayoral bid. Party organizations will host public meetings where each candidate will

Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

Heading into 2017, his re-election year, Mayor Bill de Blasio moved to eliminate several “distractions,” as he called them, attempting to clean up potentially self-sabotaging messes of his first term so that he can make as clear a case as possible for a second.

De Blasio came under fire -- and law enforcement investigations -- for behaviors that he has largely eliminated in the run-up to his re-election bid. While he can’t make the investigations, and resulting grand juries, go away by changing

Mayor Bill de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed, Mayor's Office)

Mayor Bill de Blasio often says he doesn’t put much stock in public opinion polls; he believes they’re about as accurate as weather predictions. When asked, he didn’t express much concern after a Quinnipiac University poll released August 1 showed that 51 percent of New York City voters don’t think he deserves to be re-elected in